Page 52 of Karma Kitty Christmas
Luca blinked at the change of subject. “Yeah, why?”
“Bring them over. We can put your bed or your desk or whatever in Todd’s old office and the rest of your stuff in storage. Move in with me. Make it official.”
Luca gaped. “Uhm….”
Isaac gave a fleeting smile. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He shrugged sheepishly. “I, you know, wanted to wait until you were less stressed to say it. Maybe, uhm, a date with wine, a pricey dinner, all the romance stuff we haven’t done yet.”
“Save it for some day in March,” Isaac said, obviously not caring about wine and dinner and romance. “After the Valentines Day bullshit has cleared the stores. I don’t… I’ve had the proposal and the appropriate romance, and that led to a really unhappy marriage and a man I still get mad atfor dropping dead because he thought he was smarter than his blood pressure medicine. My life would have been so much… so muchbetterif I’d gotten a divorce instead. So I don’t need to do the ‘appropriate’ thing. I love you. You sat next to me and stared out into space for an hour, just… justbeing there. That’s more emotional support than I got from Todd in the last three years of our marriage. Tonight’s going to suck. I’m going to cry again. I-I don’t have any idea how to get through the next few hours, or tomorrow, or next week. But I know that you haven’t left my side yet. Move in with me. We can be a family. Don’t leave my side until you can’t stand me anymore. Life’s unpredictable. Fuck it. Let’s be together.”
Luca had never smiled through tears before. “That’s some goddamned romance,” he murmured and pulled Isaac even tighter to his side.
The night was awful, as predicted. They had a sitcom marathon, which Isaac cried through, and Allegra sat next to him when Luca was off doing things like dishing up pizza and cleaning up the kitchen.
But at the end of the night, Luca took Isaac upstairs and undressed him, slowly, with purpose, and then kissed him and touched all his skin until he wasn’t thinking about sadness or grief anymore, but was pulled out of himself, pulled to a place where sadness couldn’t touch him.
And then they were moving together, quietly, until Isaac’s back arched, and he let out a soft cry and came.
Luca followed, and in the harsh breathing and roaring heartbeats that followed, Isaac murmured, “See that? That was some fucking romance.”
Luca’s eyes burned even as he laughed, and he held Isaac even closer. He thought they might make it through the six weeks after all.
One Day in October
LUCA’S MOVEwas so seamless a transition, Isaac only noticed it a week later, when he realized how glad he was that Luca didn’t have to go back to the apartment to make sure the place was still there.
He’d already adapted to leaving his work boots on the porch, going around to the side door to undress, and putting his work clothes in the garage. He kept a robe there, so he could shower in the downstairs bathroom. He even kept clothes in the cupboard.
All the things Todd would have disdained about living with somebody who worked hard for a living, who used his hands and actually made things, Luca minimized with thoughtfulness and common courtesy.
And he was there for Isaac. There were more breakfasts shoved into Isaac’s hand on his way out the door, more coffees made before Isaac got out of the shower, more giant lunches packed before Isaac could even think of what to make.
Isaac still shopped twice a week, and he usually had a meal plan, but Allegra helped, and Luca brought home takeout, and everybody cleaned up, and they were good—so good—at not letting the burden of caring for three people fall too heavily on any one person.
It was one of the most marvelous things Isaac had ever experienced.
And that night, that terrible, painful night after the school had been rocked by the tragedy, Luca had sat next to him, not saying anything, just holding him.
Being there.
Ordering pizza.
Making love to him.
Isaac didn’t have words to explain how much Todd wouldnothave cared about how hard that night was for him. Todd’s basic understanding for those sorts of emotions seemed to have been broken somehow. Isaac had mistaken that brokenness for strength, right up until the first time he’d lost a student—that one to cancer. There are losses in every school. Every teacher has stories like the night Isaac came home to hold Euclid. It’s part of being human. But until Isaac had come home after Christine Flores’s death, about three years into their marriage, and Todd had stared at his tearstained face like he was a two-headed frog, Isaac hadn’t realized how broken Todd had been.
And how much of that emotional burden Isaac would be forced to carry.
To have Luca sit next to him and hold him, to say he was sorry, tocarefor Isaac’s emotional health and his physical well-being when Isaac had needed somebody so badly—his lover in particular—that hadfixedthings in Isaac’s heart that had crumbled over years of neglect.
He couldtrusta lover now, because a lover could be there for him. He couldenjoythe company of a sister because his sister made his life better. Suddenly the things he gave to the relationship weren’t things he had to worry about replenishing so he could keep up his strength; they were things that were replenished by the relationship itself.
The epiphany had been awe-inspiring. Amazing. Breathtaking.
And as quiet as looking Luca in those glorious brown eyes and asking him to live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, and be a part of his life.
The sweetness of Luca’s reply, that he’d been waiting for a pricey dinner and a bottle of wine—well, that was the first timeit had really hit Isaac that Luca was younger than he was. Thirty and not thirty-eight. But if you were going to be young, that was the way to do it, right? With a little bit of idealism, some romantic gestures, some stars in the eyes.
